


My Heartbeat Shows the Fear

by unfolded73



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Car Accidents, Coming Out, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:35:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25954585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfolded73/pseuds/unfolded73
Summary: A canon divergent story: Patrick gets into a car accident and it brings the Brewers to town sooner.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 226
Kudos: 707





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will be posted in 4 chapters, every other day. There is some description of injuries, but nothing too graphic or life-threatening.
> 
> The title is from "Overkill" by Colin Hay, which thanks to the show _Scrubs_ puts me in mind of hospitals.
> 
> Thank you to Amanita_Fierce for putting so much time and thought into betaing this fic - you made it so, so much better. And thanks also to High-Seas-Swan for some helpful suggestions, particularly on that one scene that I tore apart and rewrote.

Patrick drifted into wakefulness like rising from a deep dive to the surface of the water. He became aware first, before even opening his eyes, of David’s arm over his chest and his hand curled protectively around the side of his ribcage. The sheets were soft against his skin and the duvet was a comforting weight over his body and he never wanted to move from this spot. Patrick lifted his own hand and dropped it clumsily over David’s, calloused fingertips tracing gently over David’s knuckles.

“Good morning,” David said in a surprisingly coherent voice for first thing in the morning.

Opening his eyes to see David watching him was an unusual experience. As he blinked sleep out of his eyes, Patrick tried to remember if David had ever woken up before him, and the only occasion he could summon to mind was New Year’s Day, after a night when Patrick had gotten much drunker than David had. 

“Why are you awake so early?” Patrick yawned. 

David shrugged. “It’s almost eight o’clock; you’re just sleeping later than usual.”

Groaning, Patrick started to sit up. The very energetic sex they’d indulged in last night must’ve really worn him out. “We’ve gotta get up and get started on those vendor pickups.” It was Monday and the store was closed, but they had so many pickups to do this week that they’d grudgingly agreed to do them on their day off, splitting the list in half.

“Mmm, five more minutes,” David said, holding Patrick down with the arm across his chest and shifting closer, their naked bodies coming into closer contact. Patrick closed his eyes and took a moment to appreciate that David hadn’t gotten up to put on pajamas last night, his usual routine even now that Patrick had his own apartment. Patrick was starting to suspect that he could read David’s lack of clothes the next morning as a particularly positive review on his performance in bed the night before. 

“What are you smiling about?” David asked.

“Last night,” Patrick responded without opening his eyes. They really needed to get up, he thought, but lazing around in bed with David was very tempting.

David made a pleased sound in the back of his throat. “Yeah, that was, um…” He nuzzled against Patrick’s shoulder. “If that’s what happens after you go on a date with someone else, I’m almost inclined to tell you to do it again.”

Patrick bristled at that. “That’s not funny.”

“Sorry,” David whispered, pressing a supplicating kiss against Patrick’s arm.

“Besides, I bailed partway through the date,” Patrick said. 

“Mm. Poor Ken,” David said. “He has no idea what he’s missing out on.”

Patrick frowned, turning onto his side and dislodging David from his chest. “You didn’t expect me to sleep with Ken, did you?”

David opened and closed his mouth. “Not _sleep with_ , no.”

The same queasiness that Patrick had felt last night as he drove to meet Ken rose up in his stomach. “Then, what? A quick handjob in my car?”

David shot him a guilty look. “No,” he said, but then bit his lip. “Or, I don’t know. Maybe something like that. Something that you’ve only experienced with me that you might be… curious about experiencing with another man.”

Patrick sighed. “Okay, first of all, I’m not particularly curious about experiencing stuff like that with other men.” 

“Yeah, you said—”

“And if I do become curious, or… or want to … explore with another guy in the future, you and I are going to have to be a lot clearer with each other about what is and isn’t going to happen.”

“Ground rules,” David grumbled.

“Yeah, I guess.” Patrick leaned over and kissed him. “But, David.” He kissed him again. “It’s so good with you. I sort of can’t imagine anyone else not being a huge step down in quality.”

He watched David’s face go on a journey before settling on pleased. “That’s very flattering. But sometimes the point is that it’s a stranger. Or at least, someone you aren’t going to see again.”

Patrick pulled back. “Is that something _you_ want?”

David rolled his eyes, dismissing that idea with a flap of his hand as he looked up at the ceiling. “God no. I had a lifetime’s worth of casual sex.”

Reaching out, Patrick put his hand on David’s cheek, turning his head so that they were looking at each other again. David’s face softened, his eyes gazing into Patrick’s in the way that always made his stomach swoop. Made Patrick want to sink into David’s arms and never let go. “And if that ever changes, will you tell me?”

There was a pause, and then David nodded. “Of course. Will you tell _me_? If you change your mind?”

Patrick nodded. “I promise.” And then he pulled David closer, kissing him deeper and with more tongue than was probably warranted given their morning breath. For once, David didn’t complain. 

After a minute, Patrick had to wrench his mouth away and force himself to sit up. “Okay, if we don’t get up now, I’m going to end up fucking you again.”

David smirked. “What’s so wrong with that?” And then he wiggled his hips and his expression became more thoughtful. “Although I’m still feeling what you did to me last night.”

Patrick winced. They had gone at it pretty hard, he remembered with a mixture of desire and guilt. “Sorry.”

“No, no,” David said. “It was perfect and don’t you dare apologize. Just not sure if I can get fucked again right at this precise moment.”

Patrick whipped the covers off and stood up, ignoring his own visible arousal. “You aren’t going to be. You’re gonna get ready to do the pickups west of town.”

David whined and stuck his bottom lip out. Patrick turned away from him and padded barefoot across the hardwood floor before he was tempted to bite David’s lip, because that way did not lead toward getting their vendor pickups done. “Can you make us some breakfast while I shower?” Patrick called over his shoulder. David’s _“ugh fine”_ reached his ears just as he was closing the bathroom door.

Once he had showered and shaved, Patrick emerged back into the apartment, a towel around his waist. David had pulled on a sweatshirt and drawstring shorts and was in the kitchen making Patrick’s tea. The domesticity of it made something tender and fragile swell in his chest. He loved having David here in his apartment, and he felt a wild desire to just ask David to move in, his resolution to take his time with that step in their relationship be damned. In moments like this, his original idea that he wanted to spend some time living on his own seemed silly. As he pulled on underwear and jeans (glancing over his shoulder to catch David checking out his ass), a t-shirt and a v-neck sweater, he imagined it — David’s clothes in his closet (well, some of them), David’s shoes by the door, his journal on the nightstand, his products finding a permanent home in Patrick’s bathroom rather than lugged back and forth between the motel and the apartment in David’s bag. 

“Your mom is texting.”

Startled, Patrick looked over to David, who was pointing at Patrick’s phone on the kitchen counter. “I’m gonna shower,” David continued, unaware of the track of Patrick’s thoughts. “Here’s your tea and some toast.”

Patrick walked over and picked up his phone in one hand and a piece of toast in the other.

**Mom:** _Can you call when you get a chance?_

Oh yeah, the other reason he wasn’t ready to ask David to move in yet, he thought with a surge of shame. His parents.

Figuring David would be in the bathroom for a while yet, Patrick unlocked his phone and placed the requested call.

“Hi, sweetheart!” his mother said in a chipper voice.

“Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine, we were just having breakfast and realizing that we hadn’t heard from you in a while. How are things with you?”

Patrick looked at the closed bathroom door, and then moved over to the other side of the apartment. “Things are good. I’ve got vendor pickups to do today.”

“You work so hard, dear. I hope you are taking some time for yourself too.”

“I am.” He thought about dates with David, or curling up on the bed and watching movies with David, none of which he was ready to talk to his mother about. He knew it was time. It was way past time, but he could never get the words to come out when he was on the phone with his parents. “I went two for four in my last game,” he said. Baseball was always a safe topic.

“That’s great!” his mother said, the enthusiasm she’d always shown for his athletic activities obvious in her voice. “I bet they’re glad to have you on the team.”

“Uh huh. It’s a fun team.” He thought about how easy it was to be out of the closet around them — mentioning his boyfriend as the team drank beers together at the Wobbly Elm after practice, or kissing David after games when he came to watch. It was nice. He wanted that same ease with his family, to be able to mention David in passing as more than just his business partner. He ran a finger along the top of the framed picture on his desk, of him and David on Christmas Eve last year, arms around each other at the Roses’ party. Patrick had a hard time taking his eyes off of David in that photo sometimes, radiant in a silver sweater under the warm Christmas lights. 

“Well,” she said, like she was hoping for him to say something else. After a pause in which he didn’t, his mother continued, “I should let you get on with your day.” 

“Yeah.” He sighed, guilt churning in his stomach yet again at the fact that he couldn’t just be fucking honest with this mother. That the life he shared with his parents was more gaps than substance. “I’ll call again when I have more time to talk.”

“Okay,” she said, the happiness gone from her voice. He’d done that with his evasiveness, Patrick thought. He’d made his mother sad. “I love you, sweetheart.”

“Love you, too, Mom.”

~*~

David pulled up in front of the store in the Lincoln and pushed on the heavy driver’s door with a grunt. He stood up, his sweatshirt sticking to the small of his back with sweat. The vinyl seats were one of things he hated most about that car, and he hated a lot of things about it. He wasn’t that fond of Patrick’s car either, but at least it had slightly more comfortable seats. In any case, their divided errands had made borrowing Patrick’s car impossible, so he was stuck with the Lincoln.

He unlocked the door to the store and ducked his head in. “Patrick?” he called. Patrick’s car wasn’t out front, but it was possible he’d pulled around to the back to unload. When no one answered, David pulled out his phone and sent off a text: _How close are you to getting back?_ There was no answer, so David assumed Patrick was driving. He opened his text chain with Stevie and texted, _Can you come help me at the store for a minute?_

**Stevie:** _I’m busy working._

**David:** _You’re not that busy if you’re texting me back._

She didn’t answer. “Fuck,” David whined to no one, resigning himself to having to unload the entire car by himself. This was why splitting up the vendor pickups had been a terrible idea, he thought as he muscled a crate of honey out of the trunk. Now here he was, all alone with very heavy things to carry. 

By the time he had all of the new merchandise stacked in the back room, he was drenched with sweat and there was still no sign of Patrick. Well, just for that, he wasn’t going to wait around, David thought churlishly as he locked up and got back in the car. He was going to go take a shower at the motel and Patrick could unload by himself too.

He briefly considered going to Patrick’s apartment to shower; his water pressure was better and David had a couple of changes of clothes there. Plus, he had a key, and Patrick had said that he was welcome to come and go as he pleased. But he also knew that living alone was something that Patrick wanted — it was something he’d never had before, he’d admitted to David on the day he’d signed the lease. He’d gone from his parents’ house to a dorm to apartments with a series of roommates to living with Rachel to rooming with Ray. He’d never had his own place. David understood that and he wanted Patrick to have what he needed, not have David unexpectedly underfoot when he perhaps wasn’t welcome. Still, it didn’t stop his heart from aching a little bit. He wanted to live with Patrick, he’d realized. He had been ready to take that step and Patrick hadn’t been. It stung.

Alexis was doing something on the laptop computer at her little desk when David walked into their shared room, and she looked up at him and wrinkled her nose. 

“Ugh, David, what happened to you?” she asked.

Narrowing his eyes, he dropped his bag on the bed. “I was _working_. What are you talking about?”

“You’re all gross and sweaty,” she replied.

“It’s hot out today, and I had to do a bunch of vendor pickups in that boat of a car and then unload everything into the store by myself because Patrick’s not back yet,” he complained. He collected a change of clothes and marched into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him to punctuate how tough his day had been. Okay, he’d been able to sample some of the new butter cookies that Mrs. Franklin sold through their store, and maybe she’d also given him a glass of lemonade, but still. 

After a shower, David felt worlds better, although there was still no reply from Patrick to his text.

“What is taking him so long to get back?” David muttered as he dug through his cedar chest. The sweater he was looking for didn’t appear to be in there, another annoyance in a day of annoyances.

“What’s the matter?” Alexis asked.

David waved at her, his hand flapping at the end of his wrist. “Patrick’s just taking forever to finish his vendor pickups,” he said, trying to ignore the worry beginning to gnaw in his stomach. “It’s fine.”

“I hope you had a talk last night, David,” Alexis said, her eyes not coming up from her laptop. “No more fooling around with anyone outside the relationship until you’ve established some ground rules.”

David whipped around and glared at her. “Can you let that go, please? We’re fine.”

“No thanks to you,” she said.

He suppressed a squawk. “We had a healthy talk about it this morning. We’re _fine_.”

“Good,” Alexis said.

“Also the sex last night was _very_ hot—”

“David, ew.” She stuck her tongue out. “Don’t tell me that.” But then she sort of half-smiled at him. “I’m glad you guys are okay.”

David smiled back. He was glad too. “He makes me…” David started to say, then thought better of being so vulnerable in front of his sister. But what the hell; she’d been there for him last night when he needed someone. He moved over to his bed and sat down to put on his shoes. “He makes me feel safe. No one’s ever… I’ve never dated anyone who made me feel safe before.”

Alexis, to her credit, didn’t make fun of him, although the squinty smile she gave him made him recoil, grimacing.

“Kids!” his dad called as he barged into the room. “We’re headed over to the café for dinner. Do you want to join us?”

Alexis shook her head. “I’m going over to Ted’s for dinner.”

David picked up his phone and sent another text to Patrick. _Are you still not back yet?_ And then he stared at the screen, waiting to see dots to indicate Patrick was texting back, or at least to see a read receipt. The ball of worry in his stomach grew a little bit bigger.

“David, do you want to come with your mother and me?” Johnny asked.

“I was supposed to eat at Patrick’s,” he said. “But maybe. I don’t know.” He switched apps and called Patrick’s phone, holding it to his ear and listening to it ring and ring and ring. With every ring, he felt his breathing rate tick up.

“Well, we’re going now, so I need you to decide,” Johnny said irritably.

David slapped his phone down on the bedspread and threw his hands up. “Then go without me; it’s fine!”

“David, I’m not going to wait around for a second evening that I’m supposed to spend with Ted while you have another meltdown about—”

“No one’s having a meltdown!” David shouted. “I just don’t know where my boyfriend is!” He looked at the time, feeling queasy. His previous annoyance was gone and now he was just worried. Patrick really should have been back hours ago. He tried calling again.

“David, you need to be a little bit less clingy—” Alexis said.

“Okay, well, we’re going to go,” Johnny said. “You can join us later, if…”

David’s phone vibrated in his hand, and he saw he had a call from an unknown number coming in as he tried to call Patrick. Maybe Patrick’s phone had died and he was calling from someone else’s phone, he thought as he clicked to answer.

“Hello?”

“Hello, is this David Rose?” asked a woman in a sharp, business-like tone of voice.

“Yes, who is this?” he snapped.

“This is Cheryl calling from Elmdale Hospital. We’ve got a Patrick Brewer here and he gave us your number as his emergency contact.”

“Oh, God.” There was a rushing noise in his ears and his mouth tasted like bile as he tried to shape it into making useful words. “What happened to him? Is he okay?” David clutched the edge of his bed, feeling dizzy, heart racing. 

“There was a car accident and he was brought in by ambulance a little while ago. He’s having some tests done, but I can’t disclose any information about his health to you over the phone. If you come to the hospital—”

David hung up. He imagined Patrick’s car, the car he’d ridden in countless times on their way to movie dates or dinner, speeding through the countryside as Mariah Carey or one of Patrick’s alt-folk bands blasted out of the shitty speakers. Patrick’s car, mangled on a deserted road somewhere, no one around for miles. How long did it take before an ambulance came? How long was he lying there alone, broken and injured by the side of the road?

“David, you’ve gone very pale,” Alexis said.

“Is Patrick all right?” Johnny asked as Moira wandered in. 

“John, I’m a bit peckish,” she said. “Are we leaving soon?”

“Patrick was in a car accident,” David said. Everyone’s voices sounded muffled to his ears, even his own. “I need to go to the hospital.” He stood up and looked around for the keys. He didn’t think he’d returned them to his father’s stupid little hook in the other room. Where were they?

There was a flurry of activity and then Alexis was at his side. “I’ll drive.”

David ignored her. He didn’t have time to think about Alexis right now. _Where were the fucking keys?_

Alexis held up her hand. “I have the keys and I’m driving,” she said, and David spared a moment to be confused about what he’d just thought to himself and what he’d said out loud. “You’re shaking,” she said pointedly. “Put your shoes on and let’s go.”

“Is he all right, David?” his mother asked as David sat back down on the bed and reached for his shoes. His fingers felt numb and clumsy.

“I don’t know.”

He looked up to see his parents exchange a nervous glance. 

“I mean, they said they were doing tests. They wouldn’t say that if he was, like…” _Dead_ , his brain supplied, but the word wouldn’t come out of his mouth.

“Shall we accompany you to the hospital, my darling?” Moira asked, grimacing, clearly regretting making the offer even as she did so. 

“Nope,” Alexis said, shooing them back into their room. “No need for that. We’ll call you as soon as we know something,” she said firmly. When Alexis used that voice, people often had a hard time arguing, and their parents were no exception this time.

David tied his shoes awkwardly, the bows kind of a mess. Patrick had made fun of him one time about the precise way he tied his shoes. Patrick, who was lying in a hospital bed, injured, alone…

“Come on, David,” Alexis said, taking his arm firmly but kindly. “Have you got your wallet and phone?” He patted his pockets and nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”

It was normally a forty minute drive to Elmdale, lots of time for David to imagine every possible horrible scenario. Maybe Patrick was in a coma, and would wake up having forgotten who David was, or even that he liked men. Maybe he would be paralyzed. Maybe his face would be horribly scarred. David would love him anyway, he thought, even if he’d been disfigured. All that mattered was that he came through this alive.

“I’m sure he’s okay, David,” Alexis said as if she could hear what was going on inside his head. She needed to stop doing that. It was creepy.

“You don’t know that.”

“His car is boring and probably has airbags and, like, crumple zones or whatever,” she said. “I bet he’s just got a little bonk on the head. The tests are probably just a precaution.”

He sighed, playing out that much more comforting fantasy in his head instead of his dark ones. Patrick would just stroll out of an examining room and David would hug him tight and take him home and everything would be fine. 

They arrived at the hospital in only thirty-two minutes, thanks to Alexis’s speedy driving.

He identified himself at the front desk, and the receptionist or whatever she was told him to wait. David inhaled a breath, ready to argue, but Alexis was thanking the woman and dragging him over to the rows of chairs before he could get another word out. His sister perched on one of the plastic chairs and pulled out her phone while David paced back and forth in front of her. Now that they were here, he really just wanted to tear the place apart until he could see Patrick for himself. And hold his hand; he was sure that whatever had happened, Patrick would feel better if David could hold his hand.

“David Rose?” A woman in a white coat stood next to the door that led to the rest of the hospital. He rushed over. 

“I’m David Rose,” he said, breathless. 

“You’re Patrick Brewer’s…” She consulted the chart she was holding.

“Partner. Can you please tell me what happened? Is he okay?” He could sense Alexis behind him, hovering.

“Well, he got banged up pretty good. Compound fracture of the radius and fracture of the ulna, two cracked ribs, and a concussion. The police said a truck ran a stoplight and hit his car broadside.”

David thought it was wildly inappropriate that she would expect him to remember what bones were named at a time like this. “The radius is…?”

She gestured to her forearm. “Arm bones. As is often the case with this sort of impact injury, both bones in the forearm were broken.”

Wincing, David asked, “Can I see him, please?”

“Not yet; he was taken into surgery a little while ago to stabilize the arm. It has to be operated on right away because there’s a risk of infection when the bone is exposed.”

The next thing David was aware of was Alexis guiding him down into a chair. “Okay, just lean over and put your head between your knees,” she said while David tried to figure out why his vision was narrowing. He felt sweaty. Alexis disappeared for a minute, but he could hear her voice, off to the left somewhere. Also that doctor, the one who said Patrick’s arm was… 

David fought the urge to throw up. It would be embarrassing to hurl all over the floor in the waiting room of Elmdale Hospital. 

Finally Alexis was back. “Are you gonna pass out?”

“No. I don’t think so.” He lifted his head. “What did she say after the thing about his…”

“Bone sticking out?” Alexis asked unhelpfully. David put his head in his hands. “That they did a CT scan prior to surgery and that he was alert but concussed. You’ll be able to see him once he wakes up from the anesthesia. And they’ll have a better idea tomorrow how long he’ll need to be in the hospital.” She rubbed his back. “Do you want me to get you a cup of tea?”

David nodded. “I can’t believe this happened. Just like that.”

“Yeah, I’d like to get my hands on the driver of that truck,” Alexis said fiercely, and David couldn’t help but agree. He wasn’t a violent person, as a rule, but he’d make an exception just this once. Or he’d let Alexis have at him.

“He’s gonna be okay, though, right?” David asked, not liking the pleading edge in his voice.

Alexis was still rubbing his back, and she pressed her cheek against his arm for a second. “He’s gonna be okay, David.”

He startled, a thought occurring to him suddenly, and he fumbled for his phone. “I need to call his parents.”

“You have his parents’ phone number?” Alexis asked with a grin.

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, I’ve never called them, but I was starting to think about…” He sighed. He hadn’t wanted to tell Alexis about this until much closer to the event. “Patrick’s birthday is coming up in a few months and I was thinking about inviting his parents to a surprise party,” he said as he pulled out his phone.

“David, that’s so cute,” she said with a pout.

“So I managed to use Patrick’s thumbprint to unlock his phone when he was dead asleep one night and I put their numbers into my phone in preparation for inviting them,” he said as he scrolled through his contacts. “Please don’t tell Mom and Dad; they can’t keep a secret,” he said as he pressed the button to call Marcy Brewer.

He’d only spoken to Patrick’s mother a couple of times, when she’d called the store after being unable to reach Patrick on his mobile phone. He’d handed the phone over to Patrick quickly after some brief pleasantries, but he’d gotten the impression of a friendly woman. Just the sort of person he’d expect to have raised Patrick Brewer.

“Hello,” came the maternal voice down the phone line as Alexis stood up, flopping her wrists towards her mouth. When he shook his head in confusion at her, she stuck out her pinky, miming sipping, before walking away. Right, she was going to get tea.

“Hi, Mrs. Brewer, this is David Rose calling.”

“Oh, David! How are you?”

“Um, well, not great. I’m sorry to have to call you like this, and let me start by saying Patrick is going to be fine…”

“Oh, dear. This is like the phone calls I used to get from his coaches,” she said, sounding surprisingly calm. “What happened?”

“He was in a car accident this afternoon and he’s in the hospital.” David felt tears pressing behind his eyes, and he ruthlessly swallowed them down. “I haven’t been able to see him yet, but they said his arm is broken. Also some ribs.” He decided to stop there, if for no other reason than he didn’t think he could go into more detail without needing to put his head between his knees again.

“Oh, my sweet Patrick,” Marcy gasped, sounding much less calm. “Why haven’t you been able to see him?”

“They’re… um… operating on his arm.” He braced his elbows on his knees. “It was a bad fracture.”

“Okay,” she said, back to sounding calm. “Clint and I will come there. We’ll be there in the morning.”

David wasn’t sure exactly where the Brewers lived, but he thought it was pretty far, and it sounded like she was implying that they would drive all night. “Maybe you should get some rest and leave in the morning?”

“As if I’d be able to sleep tonight, worrying about my boy,” she said. “He’s all alone there,” she said.

Frowning, David said, “I’ll be here. And my sister Alexis is here.” He wondered why she’d put it that way. Surely she didn’t think David would leave the hospital tonight, did she?

“That’s very sweet of you, David,” Marcy said. “I’ll let you know when we get into town, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” David said, off-kilter from the conversation. His eyes fixed on a stack of pamphlets on the table next to him, where a smiling woman was entirely too happy about routine colonoscopies. “It’s Elmdale Hospital,” he told Marcy. 

“Thanks, David. If you see Patrick tonight, please let him know we’re on our way.”

When a nurse finally came to tell them that Patrick was out of recovery, Alexis had fallen asleep across his lap and David had read the entire pamphlet about colonoscopies (and all of the other pamphlets within reach) front to back. He shook Alexis awake and bolted up from the uncomfortable chair, not looking back to see if Alexis was following.

The first thing he noticed were the cuts on Patrick’s face. They weren’t large; probably not worth mentioning in the context of his other injuries. Just tiny knicks in his forehead and left cheek from bits of glass, David assumed. But tears still welled up in David’s eyes when he saw those angry little cuts. Patrick looked like he was sleeping, his arm bandaged and immobilized within a plastic splint contraption. 

“Why don’t they put a cast on his arm?” Alexis asked as David went to sit next to the bed. 

The nurse who was fiddling with one of the machines in the room looked up. “They will once they’ve made certain there’s no infection.”

Patrick opened his eyes and his face cracked into a sloppy smile. “It’s David!” he slurred, then he turned to the nurse. “David is my very handsome boyfriend who’s very handsome. See, I told you.”

Alexis snorted, covering her mouth, her eyes dancing with mirth.

“What’s wrong with him?” David asked.

The nurse smiled. “He just came out from under general anesthesia. He’s been talking about you a lot.”

“Flying pretty high, Patrick?” Alexis asked with a smirk. She pulled out her phone and held it up.

“Put that away,” David snapped.

Patrick squinted at her like he couldn’t quite focus on someone that far away. “Hi, Alexis,” he said. “Thanks for coming to visit me in the hospital.” Then his head swung around to David again. “I love you. I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’m glad I’m here too,” David said around a lump in his throat. “I was worried about you.”

Patrick’s smile fell. “David?”

“Yes, honey?”

“I think I’m gonna puke.”


	2. Chapter 2

Patrick first became aware of a constant, irritating beeping noise. He blinked his eyes open, his eyelashes crusty with sleep. Oh right, he thought as he took in his surroundings. He was in the hospital. It seemed like no time at all had passed since they told him that he was supposed to go into surgery for his arm. Was the surgery already over?

He looked down and saw his arm enclosed in bandages and a splint. _Guess that's a yes to the surgery_ , he thought. The pain he remembered when he’d regained consciousness after the accident was gone, fortunately, numbed by what he assumed were some powerful drugs. He would have almost preferred some pain to this complete numbness. 

Patrick had thought of himself as pretty unflappable when it came to getting injured — as a teen he’d suffered cuts that needed stitches more than once, and the sight of his own blood hadn’t really phased him. Once he’d suffered a ligament tear and knee dislocation playing hockey, and the sight of his leg bending the wrong way had been pretty grisly, but he’d still managed to joke around with his coach while he was being carried off the ice on a stretcher. None of that compared to the sight of his own broken bone protruding through the skin of his arm. That had triggered a visceral reaction, a deep, inborn knowledge from his hindbrain that screamed: _this is very wrong!_ The paramedic in the ambulance had covered it with a bandage to keep any more dirt from getting into the wound, mercifully shielding it from Patrick’s eyes. The pain had been intense, though. _”He’s in shock,”_ he remembered the paramedic saying as he swam in a viscous soup of cold sweat and nausea and agony.

Catching movement out of the corner of his eye, he looked over to his right side and saw David sleeping on the pull-out sleeper chair in the corner of the room. He was still in his clothes, but he’d taken his shoes off and lined them up neatly next to the chair. The sight of David’s shoes brought a swell of emotion to Patrick’s chest.

“David,” he said. His voice was raspy, and he was suddenly aware of how thirsty he was. “David,” he repeated, louder.

David started up, lines on his cheek from the pillow under his face and his hair sticking up on one side. It made Patrick want to hug him. 

“You okay? Need me to call a nurse?” David asked.

“No. Is there water?”

David nodded, standing up and grabbing a cup with a bendy straw off of a small rolling table. He brought it over, carefully directing the straw so that Patrick could take it in his mouth and suck down some of the water. It made him feel uniquely helpless, being tended to like this.

“How long have you been here? What time is it?” Patrick asked.

David glanced at the clock. “It’s 2:30 in the morning.” He pulled his sleeper chair closer and sat on it, taking Patrick’s right hand in his.

Patrick frowned. “How long was the surgery?”

“A couple of hours. Do you not remember when they brought you out of recovery?” David asked, the first hint of a smile that Patrick had seen flitting over his face.

“No. The last thing I remember was them prepping me for surgery,” Patrick said.

Now David almost laughed. “In your defense, you were very high when you first came out of anesthesia.”

“What did I say?”

“Well, you swore a lot, which was _very_ out of character. And you said I was handsome several times.”

“You _are_ handsome,” Patrick said with a smile.

“And now all of your nurses know it.” David squeezed his hand.

“I’m sorry I don’t remember that.” It sounded embarrassing, but he still would have liked to see a video of it — of himself high as a kite and gushing about his sexy boyfriend to anyone within earshot. He squeezed David’s hand back.

“Mm, don’t be. You threw up and you kept saying your ears were ringing and I might’ve gotten a bit… testy… with one of the nurses when she said it wasn’t anything to worry about.”

“My hero,” Patrick sighed fondly.

“How are you feeling now?”

Patrick tried to assess how he was feeling. He had flashes of more memories — agonizing pain when he was in the ambulance and when they put in him the CT machine, but now there was little more than a dull ache. “Not bad, actually.”

“Yeah, you’re on the really good drugs,” David said, pointing up to an IV bag. “Morphine, I’m pretty sure. Also some antibiotics, but it’s the morphine that’s relevant here.”

“That explains it.” Patrick lifted his uninjured arm and tried to smooth down David’s unruly hair. “Thanks for staying here with me.”

“They would have had to drag me out of here,” David said, his voice cracking with emotion. “You scared me.”

“I’m sorry.” 

“It wasn’t your fault; it was the other driver’s fault.” David reached up and stroked a hand over Patrick’s forehead and cheek. “Do you remember the accident?”

Frowning, Patrick tried to probe his memories, and while he did so the automated blood pressure cuff around his arm filled up, squeezing his bicep almost to the point of pain before exhaling in a long hiss. “Not the impact. I remember flashes of being extracted from my car and put in an ambulance. Some stuff from when they first brought me in here.” He looked down at his arm. “I remember my arm looking really not good.”

David winced. “Yeah. Well, look at it this way: you’ll probably have a very manly scar when all this is over.”

“The car,” Patrick said. “I had all the products from the Mennonite farms in the car.” He knew insurance would cover the losses, but he still felt a stab of guilt that he’d caused some of their precious merchandise to be lost. It would take time to replace, time during which they couldn’t earn any money from the sales. He wanted to kick himself for not watching more closely at that intersection. He’d seen someone run that stoplight before. He should have been more careful.

Shaking his head, David said, “It doesn’t matter.”

“David—”

“Let me worry about it,” David said.

“You should go home and get some sleep.”

‘Not a chance. Besides, Alexis drove me here and I sent her home a while ago, so you’re stuck with me until she comes back in the morning.” He lifted Patrick’s hand to his mouth and kissed the knuckles. David’s eyes were suspiciously wet. “Also I may never let you out of my sight again.”

“I love you,” Patrick said.

“I love you more,” David replied, “as evidenced by me sleeping on this thing.” He pointed at the sleeper chair. “It makes me long for my bed at the motel.”

Patrick felt an itch between his shoulder blades, and shifted his body in an attempt to scratch it. A spike of pain shot through his side. Broken ribs, he remembered. Right. “Ow.” He chuckled uneasily. “This is going to put a real damper on our sex life.”

David leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Why don’t you try to get some more sleep? Your parents are going to be here in the morning.”

“My… what?” 

His face cracking into a yawn, David answered, “I called your parents while you were in surgery. It seemed serious enough that they needed to know.”

Patrick’s heart began to race, which unfortunately he could hear echoed in beeps from the machines behind him. David noticed too, his eyes flicking up briefly to the monitors before looking back at Patrick’s face. Mind racing, Patrick tried to sit up, and another lightning bolt of pain kept him from executing that maneuver. “What did… what did you say?”

“That you’d been in a car accident and your arm was being operated on.” David’s face betrayed his confusion. “Patrick, I know you’re not super close with your parents but they needed to know that you’d been hospitalized.”

“Yeah, I know, but… David.” This was the worst case scenario, the thing that he’d hoped to avoid David ever knowing. If he could have just gotten up the courage to tell his parents the half dozen times he’d almost managed it, then David would never have had to know that he wasn’t out to them. That he was keeping his relationship with David a secret. 

Well, there was no hiding it now. Patrick looked up at the ceiling and closed his eyes, steeling himself, before meeting David's concerned gaze. “I have to tell you something.”

David frowned. “What is it?”

“I’ve… I haven’t told my parents about the fact that we’re… together. I’m not out to them.”

“Oh.”

Patrick winced at the hurt on David’s face. “I wanted to tell them, I did, but then I didn’t go home for Christmas, and it’s just hard to… I don’t know how to say it, over the phone. I can’t get the words out.” He swallowed around a lump in his throat. “David, I’m sorry—”

“Mm mm, no. Don’t apologize.” David squeezed his hand and then kissed his fingers again, his facial expression difficult to read. The hurt wasn’t in evidence anymore, but perhaps because David was doing a better job of hiding it. “Coming out is very personal, and it’s something you should only do on your terms. Okay?” His mouth slanted to the side. “That’s why I brought this couple home from college one time and just told my parents to deal with it.”

Patrick chuckled in relief at the way David was trying to lighten the mood, but just as quickly his guilt rushed back to the surface. “I’m not ashamed of you, David. I promise I’m not.”

David’s lips quirked up. “Yes, that was obvious from the way you talked to the nurses about me when you were high.” He cleared his throat, sitting up straighter. “When your parents get here, I can just be… your business partner.”

His gut instinct was to say no. That wasn’t fair to David, or to what they meant to each other. But then he imagined it, lying here in a hospital bed, in pain and a little bit high on opiates, his arm in a splint, looking up at his parents towering over him and telling them he was gay. That he and David were boyfriends. It was an agonizing mental picture.

“Maybe… maybe just for tomorrow?” Patrick asked in a small voice. He sounded pathetic to his own ears. He looked up at the IV bag. “For one thing, I’d prefer to be sober when I do the whole coming out speech.” It was an attempt at a joke, but it wasn’t untrue. He didn’t feel like he was in any kind of mental shape to talk to his parents about his sexual orientation or his relationship with David right now.

Patrick couldn’t help but notice that David had pulled away from him a little bit, but he still had an encouraging smile plastered on his face. “That makes total sense. Don’t worry about that for right now. Just focus on healing, okay?”

Patrick reached out, putting his hand around David’s neck and pulling him in for a kiss. “I love you,” he whispered against David’s lips. “So much.”

David gave his shoulder a little pat when he pulled away. “Let’s try to get some more sleep, okay?”

“Yeah.” Patrick felt exhausted from just the half hour he’d been awake. “Okay.”

He watched as David resettled himself on the sleeper chair, twisting and turning before finally settling down and facing the wall. When Patrick finally fell asleep, his last vision was of David’s back, his shoulders rising and falling with his breath.

~*~

When the Lincoln pulled up in front of the hospital, David was outside waiting for it. He’d spent the rest of the night tossing and turning, noticing every time Patrick shifted in his fitful sleep, and then was woken for good at six in the morning when a new nurse came on shift and stopped in to check Patrick’s vitals and replace his IV bag. Patrick, meanwhile, was in more pain than when he’d awoken the first time, and he was in a mood to match. Alexis finally called to say she was ten minutes away, so David kissed Patrick’s cheek and told him he’d be back later and escaped.

He felt grimy, still in yesterday’s clothes, aware of his own body odor in a way that he absolutely despised. He walked over quickly to the car, wrenching the door open and collapsing into the seat.

“How’s Patrick?”

“Awake and coherent and cranky,” David said. “I told the nurse he needed to up his morphine, but they don’t listen to me.” He tilted his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. 

“You’re so sweet to stay by his bedside all night, David.”

He whipped his head around, looking for a sign that his sister was making fun of him, but her face was impassive as she concentrated on driving. 

“Well, I couldn’t just let him wake up alone in the hospital. Can you imagine?”

“Yes, it happened to me in Singapore,” she said. “Also in Portugal, I think it was? Anyway. I’m glad he’s okay.”

“His arm is being held together with bandages and pieces of plastic and he’s in a lot of pain, but sure. He’s right as rain.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have left then,” Alexis said.

David gestured emphatically down at his clothes. “If I can’t get out of these clothes and into a shower soon, then I might literally have a panic attack.” He turned and looked out the window at the passing fields. “Besides, his parents will be here in about an hour, his mom said.”

“Meeting the parents, David!” Alexis said, and he turned in time to see her execute an exaggerated series of blinks that seemed dangerous to do behind the wheel of a car. “I guess you do want to be freshly showered for that.”

He huffed. “I have to open the store this morning. I’ll meet them later.”

“David, no,” Alexis gasped, “you should go back to the hospital. Stevie and I can cover the store for a few hours. I talked to her about it when I got back last night.”

“I can go back tonight after work. His parents will be there with him,” David said, his stomach in knots, exhaustion weighing heavy on his limbs.

“Why are you being weird?” 

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are, David.”

Sighing, David rocked his head back to knock against the headrest several times. “Patrick’s not out to his parents. They don’t know we’re together.”

Alexis bared her teeth like that Chrissy Teigen meme. “Oh, David. Yikes.”

“I know. So being at the hospital means that I have to pretend to just be his _business_ partner, and I don’t know if I have the emotional fortitude to do that right now when he almost died yesterday.” He turned and stared out the window again. “Can we not talk about it anymore?”

Alexis didn’t say anything, but she reached over and patted his shoulder in what he guessed was supposed to be sympathy. They drove the rest of the way back to Schitt’s Creek in silence.

By the time David was showered and dressed and had his hair in order, he felt almost human, and he was resigned to not seeing Patrick again until the evening. He stepped out into his and Alexis’s room only to see Alexis and Stevie standing there between the beds. They turned to him and folded their arms, determined looks on their faces.

He pulled up short, indignant. “What?”

“We’re going to look after the store for you,” Stevie said flatly. “You are going back to the hospital.”

“Patrick needs you, David,” Alexis said.

“Patrick doesn’t need me lurking around, making his parents wonder why his business partner is being so emotional,” David said, turning to the mirror and probing gently at the skin under his eyes. His lack of sleep was painfully obvious on his face.

“I’m sure he’ll tell his parents once he’s gotten his bearings. But in the meantime, he needs to know you’re standing by him,” Stevie said.

“That is a lot of sincere emotion coming out of your mouth, Stevie. Did you hit your head?”

“Fuck off,” Stevie said. 

“You could also go by Patrick’s apartment and pick up some of his stuff,” Alexis said. “If he’s going to be stuck in the hospital, he’s going to need some comfy pajamas, and some changes of underwear. And a book or something.”

Okay, even David had to admit that was a good idea. He blew out a breath and crossed his arms, mirroring Stevie. “Are you sure you can handle the store?”

“Ugh, David, we’ve done it before,” Alexis said, stomping her foot. “Now go!” she said, shooing him out the door. 

“Wait, I need you to do something else for me,” he said. “Can you contact the police and find out where his car was taken? I need to see if any of the things in it are salvageable.”

Stevie nodded. “We’ll take care of it.”

He made a quick stop at the apartment and packed a duffel bag for Patrick: pajamas, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, underwear, a book from Patrick’s nightstand, and his toiletries from the bathroom. He packed Patrick’s phone charger, although he wasn’t sure if his phone had survived the crash. He started to put in Patrick’s favorite hoodie, but then he remembered that Patrick might not be able to get anything long-sleeved over his arm. Instead he grabbed the afghan from the back of the sofa, figuring that would have to do if Patrick was chilly in his hospital room.

The nurse at the front desk of Patrick’s floor recognized him, waving him through. It occurred to him that after yesterday, one of the nurses could inadvertently out Patrick to his parents. 

David’s first impression of Patrick’s parents was of blue sweaters. _I guess that’s where Patrick gets it_ , David thought as he hesitated in the doorway to Patrick’s room. The Brewers were standing by his bedside, his mother touching the top of his head affectionately. It was a perfect family tableau that he was loath to interrupt, but he couldn’t exactly linger in the hall all morning.

“Hey,” he said, stepping hesitantly into the room. “I’m David Rose,” he said by way of introducing himself. His eyes drank Patrick in, cataloging again the small cuts on his face. His instincts told him to go over to Patrick, to touch him, but he couldn’t do that now. Instead he stood awkwardly at the foot of the bed like an alien who didn’t know how to exist in the presence of humans.

“David! I’m Clint Brewer,” Patrick’s father said, holding a hand out for David to shake. David shifted his bag over to the other arm and suffered the overly firm handshake Clint gave him. 

“And I’m Marcy. David, thank you for calling us last night.”

“Of course.” He turned to Patrick. “I went by your apartment and packed some…” He panicked. Was knowing where Patrick kept his things a tell? I mean, it wasn’t a big apartment; he probably could have figured it out even if he wasn’t over there all the time. “Some stuff for you.”

Patrick gave him a fond look. “Thanks.”

David fixated on the least intimate thing in the bag. “I grabbed your phone charger, but then I wasn’t sure if you even have your phone.”

“Yeah, I have no idea where it is. Still in the car, probably, and who knows where that is.”

“Stevie is looking into it,” David said.

“Thank goodness Patrick has you, David,” Marcy said, holding her hands out for the bag, so David surrendered it to her.

David met Patrick’s eyes, and then quickly looked away. “I’m just trying to be a nice person, Mrs. Brewer.”

Patrick snorted, suppressing a laugh.

A doctor David hadn’t seen before breezed into the room and picked up Patrick’s chart. “How are we feeling today, Mr. Brewer?” he said as his eyes scanned over the chart. 

“Like I got hit by a truck,” Patrick muttered.

The doctor moved over toward Patrick’s injured side, forcing David to step out of the way. He watched with morbid fascination, unable to avert his eyes, as the doctor examined Patrick’s arm, then his side where presumably his broken ribs were. David caught a glimpse of terribly bruised skin under Patrick’s hospital gown, and he flinched. Pain was evident on Patrick’s face. 

“No sign of infection; that’s what we are concerned with most with this kind of injury, so that’s a great sign,” the doctor said. He then checked Patrick’s pupils and asked him a few questions, making some notes before clicking his pen and putting it away. “Did they explain the surgery to you yesterday, Mr. Brewer?” 

Patrick nodded. “Sure. That it had to be done quickly to prevent infection.”

“Right. We did what’s called an open reduction and internal fixation in this case. Metal rods were inserted which will allow your bone to fully heal.” 

“Metal rods?” David asked, and then worried about how worried he sounded. Business partners shouldn’t sound so worried, he thought.

“How about that, you’ll get to set off the machine every time you fly,” Clint said, trying to lighten the mood.

“It’s routine,” the surgeon said, putting Patrick’s chart back on its hook. “If you continue to show no sign of infection tomorrow and the wound is healing well, we’ll go ahead and put a cast on it so that you’ll be able to move more freely.”

“Am I going to regain full use of my arm? I play baseball and—”

“And guitar,” David interjected, his stomach queasy at the idea that Patrick might never be able to play again.

The surgeon smiled. “Well, you’ll definitely be on the disabled list for the rest of the season, but there’s no reason that with a little bit of rehab you won’t be able to do everything you’re used to doing after a few months.” He gave Patrick a corny thumbs-up gesture. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” Patrick said. “How much longer before I can go home?”

“Well, that’s for the attending physician to decide, but I’d say tomorrow is a distinct possibility.”

“Thank you so much,” Marcy said as the surgeon gave them a wave and rushed out of the room as quickly as he’d rushed in.

David wasn’t sure what to do. There was no reason for him to stay now that he’d delivered Patrick’s belongings, and if he did stay, Patrick’s parents would probably wonder why. 

“Is the store closed?” Patrick asked him. He had dark circles under bloodshot eyes, David noticed. He could probably use some more sleep.

“No, Alexis and Stevie are there,” David said.

“That’s your sister, and…” Clint asked.

“And my best friend.”

“Well, it’s very nice of them to help out,” Marcy said. 

“Yeah.” David fidgeted with the hem of his sweater. “So I should go…”

“Do you have a hotel booked here in Elmdale?” Patrick asked his father.

“Not yet; we came straight here. I guess we need to find a place before we collapse,” Clint replied.

“Actually, I had an idea,” Marcy said, “if you don’t mind, sweetheart.”

“What?” Patrick asked. 

“One thing you’re going to need when you get out of the hospital is food that’s easy to heat up. I was thinking we could stay at your apartment and I could use the kitchen to make you some meals and fill up your freezer before you get home.”

“Mom, you don’t have to do that—”

“Patrick, I want to. There isn’t a lot we can do to help, but I can at least do that.”

Patrick looked at David, and all David could do was shrug. It sounded like a good idea, actually, but he could also think of a few reasons why Patrick wouldn’t necessarily want his parents spending time unsupervised in his apartment.

“I can take them to your place, and… straighten things up.” David said, looking at Patrick pointedly to make sure he understood his meaning.

“Oh, we don’t care how messy it is,” Marcy said. “Don’t trouble yourself.”

“No, that’s a good idea,” Patrick said.

“It’s no trouble,” David added. “It’s on my way back to work. You can follow me in your car.”

“Thanks, David,” Clint said, clapping him on the back. 

“Is there anything else we can do for you this morning, sweetheart?” Marcy was still at Patrick’s side, stroking his hair. David felt a stab of jealousy that he couldn’t stroke Patrick’s hair right now. Or kiss him.

“No, I’m good. I’m just going to get some more sleep, I think,” Patrick said.

“I… um… brought the afghan from your apartment.” David gestured toward the duffel. He wanted to spread it over Patrick’s legs, to tuck him in securely, but instead he stood to the side and watched Patrick’s mother doing it. Then he had to settle for a little wave as the three of them left Patrick’s hospital room.

“I’m just going to run to the restroom before we go,” David said, already pulling out his phone before he’d cleared the door to the men’s room.

_911_ , he texted to Stevie. _Need you to go to Patrick’s apartment and remove any evidence of our relationship IMMEDIATELY. There’s a spare key in the top drawer of the desk in the back of the store._

**Stevie:** _why?_

**David:** _I’m bringing the Brewers over there. We’ll be there in 40 minutes._

**Stevie:** _check. what should i be on the lookout for?_

**David:** _Photos, mainly. And there’s a shelf with some of my clothes on it._

He groaned to himself and then added, _Make sure we didn’t leave lube out anywhere. Like the bedside table or on the floor next to the bed._

**Stevie:** _gross. if I have to pick up a used condom, you’re going to pay._

**David:** _What kind of animal do you think I am???_  
_Although maybe also empty the trash._  
_Thanks, I owe you._

She didn’t respond to that, but he’d have to assume she’d get the job done. 

Stevie dispatched on her errand of subterfuge, he returned to find the Brewers in the lobby. “I’ll be driving an enormous black boat of a car; you can’t miss it,” David said to them as they walked out into the sunshine. 

Once they were on the road, David’s attention bounced from the road to his speedometer to his rearview, making sure the Brewers were still behind him. By the time they got to Patrick’s apartment building, he was a tight ball of tension. 

He had a text from Stevie waiting for him when he picked his phone up and looked at it. _mission accomplished. who needs that many kinds of lube? im mentally scarred and also very curious._

“This seems like a nice neighborhood,” Marcy said, looking around. 

David thought about the recycling bin he’d seen a couple of times outside the building that was full to overflowing with liquor bottles, and about the couple downstairs who had screaming fights on Saturday nights, but didn’t think either of those were anecdotes he should tell, particularly because they would indicate how much time David had spent in Patrick’s apartment already. Instead he just agreed noncommittally as he led them up the stairs. 

It was only as he stuck his key in the lock that he realized that having Patrick’s spare key was one thing, but having it on his key ring with his keys to the store and his room key at the motel was quite another. He winced as he opened the door, hoping they hadn’t noticed. 

“So this is Patrick’s place,” he said unnecessarily, his eyes straying to the mantel and then to the desk. Stevie had done her job — the photos of him were gone. His eyes raked over the shelving next to the bed and zeroed in on the shelf where he’d had a couple of sweaters and a pair of jeans. It was empty.

“It’s not very big, is it?” Clint laughed. “But Patrick never has been someone who kept a lot of things.”

David wanted to agree vehemently — the only reason the apartment didn’t look much more spartan was David’s influence — but he bit the inside of his cheek and nodded. “So here’s the key,” he said, unclipping it from his keyring and handing it over. So much for not drawing attention to his key ring, he thought. “There’s a grocery store, Brebner’s, that’s not far away. And you can get fresh produce at our store,” he added, which made Marcy’s eyes light up. “I should change the sheets for you,” he said, turning to the bed.

“We can do that, David. You don’t have to trouble yourself.”

“Nope! It’s no trouble,” he said, and he knew he sounded manic, but there was no way on God’s green Earth he was going to let Patrick’s mother touch the sheets that were currently on Patrick’s bed. “I help my friend Stevie change sheets at the motel sometimes,” he said as he quickly stripped the bed. “I’m very good at it.”

“Oh, Patrick mentioned the open mic nights,” Clint said, pointing at the framed poster on the wall. “Did you know he used to play at an open mic night in high school?”

David finished stuffing the dirty sheets into the hamper and grabbed a clean set from the shelf. “Mm hmm, he mentioned that.”

“I’m glad he’s picked it back up. I think he’d stopped playing guitar for a while before things ended with—” Marcy stopped herself, like it just occurred to her that she maybe shouldn’t be gossiping about her son’s past love life with his business partner.

“Rachel?” David supplied as he stretched the fitted sheet out over the mattress. Marcy came over and grabbed the other side, looking relieved.

“I wasn’t sure if you knew about that,” she said, putting her corners of the sheet on as David did the same on the other side.

He nodded, remembering the worst week of the last year (until this one). “I do.” Then felt like he needed to explain knowing it. “All those hours of working together, you end up telling each other things.” _Although not, apparently, that he isn’t out to his parents_ , David’s brain supplied.

“Thanks for all your help today, David,” Clint said. “We really do appreciate it.”

David stifled a wince and nodded, trying to approximate a smile.

~*~

“Marcy, you don’t have to start cooking right this minute,” Clint said once they had the groceries unpacked. “You’ve barely slept in the last 36 hours.”

“I want to at least get a lasagna put together,” she said, organizing the ingredients for her meat sauce on the counter and then opening cabinets, looking for an appropriate saute pan. 

“Well,” Clint said with a sigh, “give me the garlic and onion and I’ll prep them for you.”

Marcy fiddled with the knobs on Patrick’s stove until she had the correct burner heating up. “His store certainly was beautiful,” she said, thinking back to their brief visit that afternoon. “I never imagined that Patrick could put something like that together.”

“Well, he did tell us that he mainly handled the financial side of things, so I suppose the look of the place is down to David.”

“I guess that’s true.” She unwrapped the package of ground beef, worrying her lip between her teeth. 

“He’s going to be okay, honey,” Clint said. “Don’t worry.”

She laughed. “Don’t tell a mother not to worry, Clint Brewer.”

She put the ground beef into the hot pan and began breaking it up with a spatula. 

“I’ll tell you another thing,” Clint said. “I think David might have a crush on our son.”

Marcy frowned at him. “You know, it’s not okay to assume someone is gay just because they’re… you know. Effeminate.”

“It’s not that.” Off his wife’s skeptical look, he conceded, “Okay, it’s not just that. It’s the way he looks at Patrick. You didn’t see the way David looked at our son?”

Marcy blinked, trying to remember. She’d been so focused on Patrick, she’d barely looked at David while they were in the hospital room with him. “I guess I didn’t.”

“Well, I think there are some unrequited feelings there,” Clint said.

She mulled that over while she continued to put her meat sauce together. It wouldn’t be good for their business relationship if what Clint said was true. She wondered if Patrick knew, and if so if it made their relationship awkward. David seemed like a respectful person; surely he wouldn’t do anything to make Patrick uncomfortable at work. 

Marcy was still worrying about it when she was brushing her teeth in the bathroom that night, beyond exhausted and ready to collapse into bed. She wasn’t sure what impulse made her reach out and open Patrick’s medicine cabinet. 

“Hasn’t Patrick been saying he wasn’t seeing anyone?” she asked Clint as she got into bed next to him.

He was already half-asleep. “Yeah.”

“Well, he’s got a mostly empty box of condoms in his medicine cabinet,” she said.

“Marcy, you shouldn’t snoop.”

“I didn’t mean to!”

“You didn’t mean to open his medicine cabinet?” he yawned. 

“It’s a big box.”

“Marcy.”

“Okay, sorry.” She curled up on her side.

“Maybe he hasn’t had any relationships serious enough to tell us about,” Clint reasoned. 

She didn’t want to have to think about her son that way, having casual, meaningless sex instead of a real relationship. That wasn’t what she wanted for him. It was why she’d encouraged him to patch things up with Rachel in the past. And while she now believed Patrick when he said things were really over between them, she still hoped he would find someone else who would love him the way he deserved to be loved. All night as she slept, her hopes and worries for her son monopolized her dreams.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be offline for much of tomorrow, so here's Chapter 3 early.

“Well, you look like shit,” Stevie said as she and David walked into his hospital room Wednesday morning.

“Thanks,” Patrick said as David took advantage of his parents’ absence to lean over and kiss him. 

“Did you sleep okay?” David asked, pulling up a chair to sit close. Patrick reached for David’s hand, taking it and squeezing it.

“Not really.” He felt terrible, but it was hard to tell if that was because of the constant aching pain coming from his arm and torso.

“So Alexis and Ted were able to get onto the lot where your car was towed and they found your phone,” David said, pulling a phone with a cracked screen out of his pocket. “We’ll have to plug it in to see if it still works,” he said as he grabbed Patrick’s charger out of the duffel bag and plugged the phone in. 

“What about the merchandise?” Patrick asked.

David grimaced. “There were a lot of broken bottles. They saved what they could.”

“Let the vendors know that we’ll pay them for the lost merchandise. It should be covered by our insurance,” Patrick said, shifting his body and wincing at the pain in his side. “We’ll have to file a claim.”

“Okay, but I don’t want you to worry about that right now,” David said, leaning over and nuzzling against Patrick’s cheek. It felt like David was trying to absorb as much physical affection as he could while he had the opportunity.

“So what did your arm look like before, was it really gross?” asked Stevie from her spot leaning against the wall.

“Don’t answer that,” David warned. “Are you in a lot of pain?”

“It’s a little better. And I’ve managed to walk to the bathroom to pee without passing out, so that’s a big accomplishment.”

David laughed. “I’m so proud.” He let go of Patrick’s hand and stroked up and down his right arm affectionately. 

“I assume my parents got settled in okay?” 

“Oh yeah,” Stevie said, “we were going to talk about the lube—”

“No, we weren’t,” David said quickly, then in explanation to Patrick, he added, “Stevie went over and scrubbed the apartment of evidence of our relationship yesterday before your parents got there.”

Patrick’s stomach sank. Now his cowardice had not only hurt David, but had forced their friends to sneak around like they were in a farce. “Thanks, Stevie.”

“And I told my family not to say anything if they ran into your parents in town. Although they can’t really be relied on _at all_ not to open their big mouths, so really it’s a bit of a crap shoot. But I told your parents that the food at the café was terrible, which wasn’t even a lie, so hopefully they won’t go there.”

Patrick imagined Johnny Rose stumbling through a conversation with his parents and revealing the nature of David and Patrick’s relationship. It was a terrifying idea, although he had to admit that a tiny part of him wanted it to happen. At least it would save him from having to break the news.

He really needed to tell his parents before this went on any longer.

“I’ll tell my parents when they get here this morning,” Patrick blurted out.

David grimaced. “You don’t have to rush, honey,” he said, still stroking his arm.

“No, David, this isn’t fair to you. I—”

“Good morning!” And there his parents were, walking into the room. David flinched back, his hand dropping from Patrick’s arm. 

“We didn’t know you’d have visitors already so early,” Marcy said warmly, looking back and forth between David and Stevie.

“Yeah, we thought we’d stop in before I have to open the store,” David said as if a visit to the hospital didn’t require almost an hour and a half of driving. 

“Should I point out that you’re already late opening the store?” Patrick gave him a teasing smirk. 

“Everyone in town has heard about your car accident; I’m sure they’ll be forgiving,” David said.

“It’s good to see you again, Stevie,” Clint said, and Stevie gave him an awkward little wave.

“You guys met already?” Patrick asked.

“Yes, we met at your wonderful store, dear,” Marcy said.

“I gave your parents a quick tour of the store yesterday afternoon before they drove over to Brebner’s. I told them our fresh vegetables were much better,” David added.

“You were right,” Clint said.

It all felt like it was spinning out of his control, if it ever had been in his control — while Patrick lay helpless in his hospital bed, David and Stevie were spending time with his parents. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was supposed to have told them about his relationship with David, and they were supposed to see the truth of his life in Schitt’s Creek. _He_ was supposed to have given them a tour of the store. They were supposed to see how settled and happy he was in the town with the people that knew him as half of ‘David and Patrick.’ Instead they were getting this incomplete, false version of him.

“David, I need to get back to the motel soon,” Stevie said, and David stood up. Patrick felt an urge to grab for his hand, to stop him from leaving. Instead he lay there, paralyzed by doubt.

A nurse came in then. “Goodness, you’re very popular this morning, Patrick,” she said, picking up his chart and making some notes from the screens behind his head.

“I’ll meet you in the lobby?” Stevie said to David, and then patted Patrick’s foot. “Feel better,” she said before disappearing from the room.

“You’re scheduled for blood work today, so I’m here to steal some blood,” said the nurse. Her name was Janice, Patrick remembered; she’d been on duty before. She pulled some tubes out of her pocket and lined them up on the table.

“Stevie seems nice,” Marcy said. ‘And she’s very pretty.”

“Marcy,” Clint said, a warning tone in his voice. 

“What? I’m just saying.”

“No, you’re matchmaking,” Clint replied.

As she tightened the rubber band around his bicep and skillfully inserted the needle into his arm, Janice raised her eyebrows at Patrick, cut her eyes over to David, and then tilted her head almost imperceptibly toward Patrick’s parents. Her meaning was as clear as if she’d spoken out loud — _they don’t know David is your boyfriend?_ Patrick shook his head as the first tube filled with blood. _No, they don’t know._ Janice nodded.

“I’m not matchmaking,” Marcy said. “But you can’t blame me for wanting to see Patrick happy in a relationship.” Patrick glanced at David, but David was studying his nails, his face carefully blank. Whether he was averting his gaze to avoid seeing blood or to avoid this conversation, Patrick wasn’t certain.

“Oh, don’t worry, Patrick’s having a torrid affair with most of the nurses on staff, the heartbreaker,” Janice said with a conspiratorial wink.

His parents laughed, and his mother dropped her line of inquiry. _Thank you_ , Patrick mouthed to Janice, who smirked.

Once the four vacutainer tubes were filled, Janice checked his chart again. “Whoops, forgot to record your temperature.” She pulled out a thermometer and put it under Patrick’s tongue, waiting for the beep before reading the number. 

“38.1,” she said, clucking her tongue. “You’re running a bit of a fever today, Patrick.”

“What does that mean?” David asked.

“Could be nothing — patients get unexplained fevers in hospitals all the time — but we want to rule out an infection stemming from his forearm fracture. I’ll page Dr. Barnes.” She patted Patrick’s hand and left the room.

His mother took Janice’s place, putting her hand on his forehead. “You do feel warm. Would you like me to get a wet cloth for your head?”

“No, Mom. I’m fine,” Patrick sighed as he shut his eyes. No wonder he was feeling so shitty. 

“I’m sorry about before,” she said. “I know you told us that you weren’t seeing anyone, but I guess deep down I was hoping to meet a girlfriend. You’re such a catch, sweetheart.”

Patrick opened his eyes and met David’s. He could tell them now, but the fever was making him feel like he wanted to sleep for a thousand years. “There’s no girlfriend,” he said.

“Not in all the time you’ve lived here?” Marcy asked.

Patrick shook his head, still looking at David. He just needed to say it. _I’m gay. There isn’t ever going to be a girlfriend. There’s David, who I think might be the love of my life._

He opened his mouth, and Dr. Barnes came through the door. 

“Patrick, what’s this fever nonsense?” she chided jokingly. “Didn’t I teach you better than that?”

Chuckling weakly, Patrick tried to communicate to David with his eyes that he’d been on the verge of coming out, if only his doctor didn’t have the worst imaginable timing.

Dr. Barnes probed and prodded him, removing the splint from his arm long enough to unwrap the bandages and examine it. The movement was excruciating, but Patrick tried not to show the pain on his face in front of David and his parents. David was averting his eyes again anyway to avoid seeing Patrick’s injury.

“Still no sign of infection from the wound, so I think this is just a run-of-the-mill fever,” she said as she replaced the bandages and the splint. “But we can’t take any chances, so we’ll have to keep you at least one more night for observation.”

Patrick sighed in frustration. He really wanted to go home. He desperately wanted to be in his own bed being held by his boyfriend, even if having David moving around next to him in the bed would make his injuries more painful. He didn’t care.

“I know, it sucks. But infections are no joke.” The doctor made some notes on Patrick’s chart. “I’ll check in again toward the end of my shift, okay?”

“Okay,” he said, lying back on the pillows as she left.

“Your phone seems to be working,” David said, holding it up from where it was plugged in to show Patrick the screen. His voice sounded strangled. “I’ve gotta go. I can’t keep Stevie waiting any longer.” He reached out briefly, but then dropped his hand. “Maybe you can text me later?”

“Of course,” Patrick said, his own voice almost cracking with emotion.

“Bye,” David said, turning quickly and leaving the room.

His father was looking thoughtfully at him, and Patrick tried not to squirm under the scrutiny. “You’ve got a good friend there, Patrick.”

“Yeah, he’s… he’s the best,” Patrick said, drowsiness swamping out his ability to say anything more.

~*~

“He’s not going to tell them,” David said to the passenger window of Stevie’s car.

“David, give the guy a break — he’s clearly not feeling a hundred percent right now.”

He ignored Stevie’s very logical argument. “I mean, look at him. Look at his parents. I’ll never fit in with the wholesome, clean-cut vibe they have going on. Why would he want to tell his parents that he ended up with…” He gestured manically up and down at himself. “... _this?_ ”

Stevie cast a vicious side-eye in his direction. “That’s ridiculous.”

“ _Is it?_ ” he blurted out in a high voice. 

“David, he loves you. You know he loves you. Stop with this bullshit.”

He didn’t want to argue about it. Stevie wasn’t going to understand — she didn’t know what coming from a home that wasn’t dysfunctional was like anymore than he did. She didn’t understand that broken people like him didn’t have a place with families like that. Families where parents dropped everything and came rushing to their son’s aid, and not just because they thought he’d taken a prized crocodile bag.

He finally got the store open at ten-thirty, and a few people stopped by before lunch to inquire about Patrick. It was sweet, David thought, that people cared so much, but having to field their questions about Patrick’s health wasn’t helping his anxiety. By the afternoon, he was doing a fairly brisk business, which limited the amount of time he could spend spiraling about his relationship. Worrying that Patrick was realizing that if he was too ashamed to tell his parents that the two of them were dating, then their relationship was probably doomed.

By the time the Brewers themselves walked into the store just before closing, David was just about ready to jump out of his skin.

“Hi,” David said, and then immediately began to fret that he’d lost the ability to even say ‘hi’ like a normal person. “Is Patrick okay?”

“He is,” Marcy said. “They did some more tests and there’s no sign of infection, so he should be discharged tomorrow. They also went ahead and put a cast on his arm.”

David nodded, relieved. “Do you know how long you plan to stay in town? Do you have to get back home for work, or…?” He racked his brain, trying to remember what they did for a living. Clint did something in an office, he was pretty sure, and Marcy he couldn’t remember at all.

“We both had personal days to spare,” Clint said, “but I think we’ll head home on Sunday morning if Patrick doesn’t need more help.”

_He has me_ , David wanted to shout, and he pressed his lips together to keep it in. “Do you need a place to stay for the remaining nights after Patrick is discharged? I can call Stevie and have her reserve a room at the motel.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s not a high-class establishment, but at least it’s close.” It would also put Patrick’s parents in close proximity to his own parents, which was risky, but he couldn’t think of a good excuse not to have them stay at the motel.

“Oh, that would be great, David. Thank you,” Marcy said.

“We were thinking,” Clint said, “we’d like to take you to dinner tonight.”

David tried to limit his physical recoil to the suggestion of spending so much uninterrupted time with Patrick’s parents. “You don’t have to do that.” He wasn’t sure if he could keep up this charade for another minute, much less an entire meal without Patrick there as a buffer.

“Please, David?” Marcy was weaponizing her eyes — he could see that Patrick came by it honestly. “It’s the least we can do.”

He looked around for a good excuse not to have dinner with Patrick’s parents. “I have to close up the store.”

“We can pick you up whenever you’re done,” Clint reasoned. “I’m in the mood for pizza, and I spotted a place near the hospital. Do you know it?”

David nodded reluctantly. “Reginos. It’s surprisingly good.” It was where he and Patrick had gone for their second date.

“Great. What time will you be finished here?” Clint asked, in a way that indicated he wouldn’t be taking no for an answer.

David thought about it. He didn’t have Patrick to help, and he’d let most of the closing up tasks slide the night before. “Umm, six-thirty?”

Clint clapped his hands together. “We’ll be back at six-thirty to pick you up.” He seemed very pleased, so David tried to look pleased too. He suspected his smile wasn’t quite cutting it.

As soon as they left, he texted Patrick. He wasn’t sure if Patrick would be checking his phone, but he hoped. _Help, your parents are taking me for pizza._ No response came immediately, so David went to work cashing out the register drawer.

His phone didn’t ping until he’d finished with the bookkeeping and was starting to sweep the floor. David leaned the broom against the counter and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

**Patrick:** _I would kill for some pizza._

**David:** _I’ll get you as many pizzas as you can stand when you’re home._

Patrick was typing for a while — David assumed he must be doing it with one thumb, poor thing. 

**Patrick:** _I miss you. Been thinking about you all day._

It wasn’t until he saw this text that David realized — ever since he left the hospital that morning, a part of his brain had been spooling out a scenario in which Patrick had decided to break up with him. Seeing that text made him weak with relief. He pressed the button to call Patrick.

“Hey,” Patrick said as soon as the call connected.

“Your typing was too slow. And I miss you too. But what the hell am I going to talk about during an entire meal with your parents?”

Patrick sighed heavily. “I’ve just made this worse for you. I was going to tell them this morning, but doctors and nurses kept coming in and out, and I felt like shit, and—”

“Honey, I told you. You don’t have to apologize.” David probed his feelings for the resentment he knew he’d be justified in feeling, but all he could find was sympathy. “I know this kind of thing is hard for you.”

“I keep wondering if you’re just holding back on being angry with me because I’m in the hospital,” Patrick said.

“I promise I’m not.” David took a deep breath. “I keep wondering if, faced with the idea of telling your parents about us, you’re realizing that I’m all wrong for you.”

“David. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

They were silent for several seconds, basking in each other’s reassurances.

“Ask them to tell you stories about when I was little, that’ll keep them going for a while,” Patrick said. “Or talk about the store.”

“Okay, good ideas. Got any others?”

“I don’t know, tell them about the time you went parasailing with Anderson Cooper?” Patrick said with a laugh.

“Yeah, I’m _not_ going to be doing that.”

“Will you be here in the morning when I get sprung from this place?”

“Won’t your parents think it’s weird, me being there?” David asked.

“I think I’ll ask them to meet us at the apartment. Can you pick me up? Just you?” His voice sounded small.

“I guess I’m going to be doing a lot of that until you can replace your car,” David responded with a smile that he hoped Patrick could hear.

Patrick groaned. “I hadn’t really even thought about that yet.”

“And you don’t need to,” David said, immediately regretting that he’d brought it up. “Just get some rest tonight and I’ll see you in the morning.”

~*~

Clint ran his fingers over the edge of the checkered tablecloth as the server put menus in front of them. “What’s good here, David?”

David’s eyes widened like he’d been asked a personal question rather than just what kind of pizza he liked. “Um, the meat lover is good. And the chicken pesto.” His lips slid to the side in a little half-smile. “Patrick likes the spicy barbecue chicken.”

Marcy wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like spicy pizza.”

“Yes, _thank you_ ,” David said. “Spicy food is fine, but that’s another genre of food from pizza. Spiciness destroys the flavor palette of a pizza; I’ve told him a million times.”

“I’m afraid he gets that from me, but I’ve resigned myself to the fact that there are certain foods I can’t get when I’m out with my wife,” Clint said, winking at Marcy.

“Or when you’re going to be sleeping next to me afterwards,” Marcy said, which made David laugh with surprise.

They ordered the meat lover pizza on David’s recommendation, and with that task completed, their conversation lulled. Clint tried not to be too blatant in his observation of David, this man who had gone into business with his son last year. This man who Patrick often ended up talking about during their phone calls when he ran out of other things to tell them about.

This man who, after this morning, Clint was convinced his son was in love with.

He didn’t think Marcy had noticed, and he’d decided not to bring it up to her in the car. He wanted to turn it over in his mind some more, determine if it had the weight of truth. But he’d seen the look on Patrick’s face when his eyes met David’s in that hospital room, and he was fairly certain he wasn’t wrong.

“So did Patrick really start playing hockey when he was four?” David asked suddenly. He grimaced almost like he was surprised the question had come out of his mouth. 

Marcy launched into the story of the time she strapped their son into hockey gear and put him on the ice for his first lesson, and Clint watched the warmth grow in David’s eyes as he listened to the tale. It became clear during the conversation that David didn’t know anything about hockey, but he seemed interested nonetheless, asking follow-up questions about what Patrick had been like as a child until the pizza arrived, steaming and delicious.

They asked David about his own family as they ate. He hesitated at first in his responses, but he soon warmed to the topic. He talked about his father going into business with Stevie to save the motel, his mother serving on town council, and his sister starting her own business. It became clear that David was proud of what his family had accomplished in Schitt’s Creek.

“You’ve all done so much after such a terrible thing happened to you,” Marcy said. 

“I think most people see what happened to us as karmic justice,” David said. “People love stories about rich people being knocked down a few pegs.”

“Well,” Marcy said thoughtfully, “I can’t pretend to know what your life was like before, but regardless, it’s unfair that you had everything stolen away. And it’s admirable, what your family has done for your town.”

David blushed, averting his eyes and wiping his hands with a napkin. “Thank you,” he said in a soft voice.

After dinner, they dropped David off at the motel before driving back to Patrick’s apartment. Marcy excused herself to the bathroom, and Clint pulled out his phone and called Patrick.

“Hey, Dad,” Patrick said when he answered, his voice sounding stronger than it had earlier in the day. “How was dinner?”

“It was good. Just checking to make sure they’re still planning to spring you in the morning.”

“Yeah, as far as I know.”

“What time should we be there to pick you up?” Clint asked.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. David’s going to pick me up tomorrow,” Patrick said.

“Doesn’t he have to open the store? It’s no problem for us to be there.”

“Nope,” Patrick said firmly. “We’ll meet you at the apartment.”

Clint smiled to himself. “You must be excited to get home.”

Patrick chuckled. “You have no idea. I’ll see you tomorrow, Dad. Love you.”

Marcy came out of the bathroom just as Clint was getting off the phone. “Patrick said David’s going to pick him up from the hospital tomorrow. He wants to meet us here.”

She frowned. “There’s no need for David to do that.”

“Well, Patrick wasn’t taking no for an answer.” He moved over to the window, shifting the curtain aside to look out on the nondescript lawn in the front of the apartment building. He remembered the last time Patrick broke up with Rachel, the night he came over to tell them he needed to move away and get a fresh start. _“I keep going back to her by default but it’s never right. It’s not what I want.”_

“What’s on your mind, sweetheart?” Marcy asked him.

He took a shaky breath, his eyes changing focus so that he mostly saw the reflection of the apartment in the window glass instead of the landscape outside. “Do you remember that boy, Mark? The captain of the baseball team when Patrick was in grade ten?”

“The catcher? Yes, I remember.”

“Do you remember how much Patrick used to talk about him? Walking us through every play at the plate he made?” They would ask Patrick how baseball practice had gone, and inevitably the story would turn to Mark — the way he played, or the funny things he said in the locker room.

“I mean, I guess so. Why?”

“He never talked about Rachel like that. Not even back then.”

“Clint, what are you talking about?”

He turned and faced his wife. “I said before that I thought David had unrequited feelings for Patrick, but I watched them at the hospital this morning. I watched Patrick. There’s nothing unrequited about it.”

Marcy frowned. “So you’re saying—”

“I’m saying if they aren’t a couple, then they’ve both got feelings for each other they aren’t talking about,” Clint said. 

Confusion was evident on Marcy’s face. “But Patrick dated Rachel for years. And other girls.”

“I’ve been thinking about that a lot today,” Clint said with an unhappy sigh. He sat down on the sofa and put his elbows on his knees. “He was almost boxed into dating Rachel before he’d finished going through puberty. They were best friends for practically their whole lives. Everyone expected them to start dating when they got old enough, us included. And Patrick has always been such a people-pleaser; he did what was expected of him from the time he was little.”

He stood up again and paced across the floor, unable to sit still. “And, look, he could be… bisexual. Or some other orientation that I don’t know the name of. I don’t know. I just saw the look on that boy’s face this morning when he looked at David. And I don’t think I ever saw him look at Rachel that way.”

“So if that’s true, why hasn’t he told us? Why are they keeping it a secret?”

Clint ran his hands over his face. “I don’t know.”

“We’ve never given Patrick any reason to think we wouldn’t accept him, have we?”

“Other than to encourage him to get back together with Rachel when they were struggling?” 

Marcy’s face fell. “And then I just assumed … with Stevie earlier, and other girls… I defaulted to the idea of him being straight. It never occurred to me not to.”

Clint walked over and took her hand. “Me either. So, we start making up for it now. Yeah?”

She wiped away a stray tear. “Yeah.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who read and commented as this fic was posted - your comments have meant so much to me, particularly this week.

Patrick was doing okay until he got to the stairs leading up to his third floor apartment. The first step made his ribs scream in agony. The second step took it somewhere beyond screaming. 

“I told you to take one of those lovely vicodin the doctor prescribed you,” David said, hovering at his side.

“And I told _you_ that I don’t like the way they make me feel,” Patrick gritted out. 

“Yeah, and this feels much better. Here,” he said, bending down so that his height was even with Patrick’s. “Put your arm over my shoulders. We’ll go slow.”

They gradually worked their way up the stairs, David taking most of Patrick’s weight. It didn’t help much with the pain, but at least it kept him moving. The relief at seeing the door to his apartment finally in front of them almost made Patrick laugh with glee.

“There they are!” Patrick’s dad said when David got the door open. He helped David maneuver Patrick over to the sofa and ease him down, which made the pain in his ribs finally settle down to a dull roar.

David produced Patrick’s prescription pill bottles from his bag, lining them up on the kitchen counter.

“Can I make you some tea, sweetheart?” his mother asked. 

“Um, sure,” Patrick said, watching David. When he’d finished arranging the bottles, he reached into his bag again and pulled out the discharge paperwork from the hospital and began reading it over again, wandering back to stand behind the sofa Patrick was parked on. Patrick let his head tip back as he watched David read. He’d already pored over the papers once while they were waiting for Patrick to be released and here he was, going through them again the same way he went over contracts with their vendors. At first Patrick had been surprised when David showed such a keen interest in those contracts, but he soon learned that when something was important to David, he was capable of a singular kind of focus.

“It says deep breathing will help your ribs heal,” David said, his eyes still on the paperwork.

“Mom? Dad? I need to tell you something,” Patrick said without taking his eyes off the man he loved.

David’s head whipped up.

Clint settled into one of Patrick’s arm chairs and Marcy came in from the kitchen, standing at his side. “What is it, honey?” she asked.

“I’ve been… I haven’t been telling you guys the whole truth. But I want to tell you now,” Patrick said. He felt the urge to fidget, to stand up and pace, but he couldn’t. He’d just have to sit here with his aches and pains and tell the truth.

“I can… go. Give you some privacy,” David said, looking panicked.

Patrick met his gaze. “Will you stay?” he asked softly. David paused, then nodded slowly. Patrick looked back at his parents. “This is all my fault. I asked David to hide it because I was a coward and because… ” — he laughed nervously — “I was a little distracted by…” He pointed to his broken arm.

“You can tell us anything!” Marcy said brightly. 

Clint put a hand up to stop her. “Marcy, just let him talk.”

“But it hasn’t been fair to you, and it especially hasn’t been fair to David. And I’m sorry,” he said, tilting his head back again to meet David’s eyes.

“Patrick, I told you—” David started.

“I’m gay, and David is my boyfriend.” The words were surprisingly easy to say, despite all the times on the phone and in the hospital when they’d stuck in his throat. He reached up to David and took his hand. “And if I hadn’t gotten in this stupid car crash, I’d be able to say unequivocally that I’ve never been happier than I am right now.”

His parents exchanged a look, and then looked back at them. “Well, that’s all we care about,” Marcy said, her voice watery with unshed tears. “That you’re happy.”

“It is. We’re glad you told us,” his dad said. “We were always going to support you, son. Both of you. If you doubted it before, I hope you never doubt it again.”

Patrick watched their faces for several seconds. “You seem a little less… surprised than I thought you’d be?”

Marcy smiled. “Well, that’s because your father figured it out.”

Patrick felt David startle, and he looked up to see David glancing around the apartment like he was going to find some overlooked evidence that had tipped them off.

“I just saw the way you looked at each other, that’s all,” Clint said, blushing faintly. 

“Well, at first you just thought David was carrying an unrequited torch for Patrick—” Marcy said.

“Only at first,” Clint said with a laugh.

“Aww, David, were your heart-eyes too noticeable?” Patrick teased. The overwhelming relief flowing through him made him feel like laughing, although Patrick thought that if he actually started laughing it might quickly turn into hysterical crying. 

“Ugh,” David said, trying to suppress a smile. “Look who’s talking.”

“Oh, I forgot to make your tea,” Marcy said, moving back toward the kitchen.

“Let me do it, Mrs. Brewer,” David said as he let go of Patrick’s hand, his longer strides carrying him to the kitchen counter more quickly. “I can make some for everyone.” Patrick could see in the set of David’s shoulders how anxious he was. Knew how badly he wanted Patrick’s parents to approve of him.

“How about we work together then,” she said, and then in a lower, conspiratorial tone, “I might have made some cookies that I can break out.”

“Patrick,” his dad said, his tone more serious. “I’m sorry that you felt like you couldn’t tell us. I’m sorry that we didn’t… I guess that we didn’t make the space for you to confide in us.”

Patrick winced. He could see regret and guilt in his father’s eyes, and he couldn’t bear to be the cause of it. “You didn’t do anything wrong. For a long time, I didn’t actually realize that I was gay. I didn’t know what being in a relationship was supposed to feel like.” Patrick tried to fidget with his hands, all of this truth-telling making him nervous, but the cast that covered part of his left hand stopped him. “And I didn’t want to disappoint you. Or Rachel, or her family.”

“You were never going to disappoint us, not like this.” Clint’s eyes strayed over to where Marcy and David were talking softly in the kitchen as they put tea bags in mugs and the electric kettle burbled. “Not because of who you love.”

Patrick tried not to cry at that, but everything he’d been through the last few days had his emotions too close to the surface, and he very quickly found himself wiping away tears. His father got up from the armchair to sit next to him on the sofa. “Can I hug you? I don’t want to hurt you.”

With a watery laugh, Patrick put his uninjured arm around his father and let himself be pulled into a careful hug. It was a little bit painful, but more than worth it to feel those comforting arms from his childhood, as willing to hold him as ever.

When David and his mother brought over the tea and cookies, Clint vacated the spot next to Patrick for David to take. Patrick let himself sit close to David, their legs touching, and leaned into David’s side. David put his arm around Patrick, his fingers scratching absently over Patrick’s shoulder as they so often did. Showing this casual affection in front of his parents, the way he’d gotten used to in front of everyone else in his life, was such an unlooked-for joy. It almost made the car accident worth it. He wondered how much longer he would have waited to tell them, otherwise. Bantering back and forth, he and David told the story of their first date, and of the first open mic night at the store, and being able to share this facet of his life with his parents healed a part of him that he hadn’t realized was broken.

Patrick was exhausted though, and the soothing stroke of David’s fingers and the cadence of his parents’ and David’s voices eventually lulled him to sleep. 

~*~

He drifted back into consciousness gently and felt David still there, surrounding him and serving as a not-quite-ideal pillow. 

“Where did my folks go?” Patrick mumbled.

David pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “They went to the motel,” he whispered. “Do you want to get some more sleep?”

Patrick shook his head and sat up, groaning as his ribs protested. “No, I think I want to eat pizza and watch a movie with you. If you don’t mind eating pizza two days in a row.”

David scoffed. “When have I ever refused to eat pizza two days in a row?” He already had his phone in his hand, ready to dial the pizza place in Elm Glen that would deliver to Schitt’s Creek. It wasn’t their favorite pizza in the area, but right now Patrick thought he’d be willing to do serious criminal acts to get some of that trash pizza in his mouth.

“Thank you, David,” he said.

David seemed to understand that he wasn’t just talking about the pizza. “I’m so proud of you.”

Patrick laughed. “I’m… very relieved it went so well with my folks.”

“Of course it was going to go well,” David said, leaning over and giving him a smacking kiss on the mouth. “They love you.”

After a couple of hours which included an uncomfortable quantity of pizza and one romantic comedy, Patrick was ready to go to bed. “Can you help me put a plastic bag on my cast so I can shower?”

David was off the sofa like a shot, already digging around in the drawer where Patrick had stashed a few bags from Brebner’s, intending to recycle them. Patrick went over and found a rubber band in his desk drawer.

“Do you want help getting your t-shirt off?” David asked.

Patrick nodded sheepishly as he lifted his arms, his ribs throbbing. “It’ll be the least sexy undressing me has ever been.”

David gave him a smile. “It’s still a little bit sexy, but only because after five days, I’m feeling pretty hard up.”

Flinching as David maneuvered the shirt over his cast, Patrick said, “We used to go that long without having sex all the time, back before this apartment.” He held his arm out and he and David managed to seal it up reasonably well in the plastic bag. Patrick shuffled into the bathroom, pushing his sweatpants and underwear down, trying to move his torso as little as possible while he did so. 

“Yeah, but I’ve gotten pretty used to this honeymoon we’ve been having since you moved.”

Patrick turned with a smirk as David joined him in the bathroom. “Honeymoon, eh?”

“Shut up, you know what I mean,” David said as he turned on the water and began removing his own clothes. 

“And so you’ve decided it’s sexy shower time? Because I don’t think—”

“I’ve _decided_ that you’re probably going to need help, given that every time you lift your arms you wince in pain.” His eyes were on the bruises that formed a painful map on the side of Patrick’s torso.

Patrick looked down. “I know, it looks terrible.”

“You’re still gorgeous,” David said with a kiss to his forehead. “Now get in.”

Patrick was grateful for the help, in truth, and he stood still under the spray while David lathered up a bath sponge and went to work. David avoided his injured ribs aside from one very cautious swipe of the sponge. None of it was sexual, but that didn’t stop Patrick’s dick from getting a little bit interested from all of the touching that his also-naked boyfriend was doing to his body. 

“Okay, let me do your hair,” David murmured, turning Patrick toward him. 

Patrick leaned forward and pressed his face against David’s clavicle. “I missed you.” He brought his right hand up to thread through David’s chest hair and let his eyes drift close.

“I missed you too, honey,” David replied. Patrick heard the snap of the shampoo cap and then David’s hands were in his hair. He drifted in the sensation of the warm water on his back and David’s talented fingers on his scalp, and then suddenly lost his balance and stumbled a little.

“You’re asleep on your feet,” David said fondly, tilting Patrick’s head back to rinse.

“I don’t know why,” Patrick said, suppressing a yawn. “I’ve already had a nap and it’s barely nine-thirty.”

“The nurse said it would be normal to be tired today,” David reminded him. “You’ve been up and about way more today than you have been since the accident.”

Patrick considered telling David to skip the conditioner, but he knew his boyfriend would protest. And besides, it meant he got to have the feeling of David’s fingers in his hair for a little while longer.

“Okay, I’m done with you,” David said, kissing his cheek after the conditioner was rinsed from his hair. “You gonna be okay to dry off and get your pajamas on? I’m just going to get cleaned up myself while I’m in here.”

“Yeah,” Patrick said. “Thank you,” he said with more weight than he intended to, and then he laughed it off. “You gonna help me shower for the next six weeks?”

David was still looking at him fondly. “If you need me to.”

Patrick kissed him and opened the shower door, stepping carefully out. While he dried off, he watched David, his body partially obscured by the frosted glass. Patrick could hear him humming under his breath as he shampooed his own hair.

After he’d brushed his teeth and taken the plastic bag off of his arm, Patrick left the bathroom and went over to the other side of the apartment to struggle into pajamas. By the time his back hit the mattress of his own bed (finally, his own bed), he was already nearly asleep. 

He drifted out of a shallow slumber when David emerged from the bathroom. “There you are,” he mumbled.

“Do you want me to go back to the motel? Or I could pull out the sofa bed?” David asked him in a low voice.

“What? No, I want you here with me.” And then Patrick realized that he’d fallen asleep on his usual side of the bed, which meant his injured left arm was toward David’s side. He shifted over awkwardly. “We’ll need to switch sides though.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to fidget during the night and hurt you.”

“I don’t care,” Patrick said. “I want you beside me.”

“Okay.”

David settled down under the covers, hesitant and cautious in his movements. Patrick reached out with his right hand and found David’s hand under the covers. “Sorry I’m not up for sex.”

“I kind of assumed,” David said, and Patrick could hear the smile in his voice. “In fact, I was so sure that you were too tired that I might’ve… jerked off in your shower.”

Patrick cracked an eye open and made an attempt at a glare. “Well, now I’m jealous.”

“I could give you a very careful handjob if you want,” David said. 

Patrick considered it, and then promptly yawned. “Maybe tomorrow.”

David rolled toward him and kissed Patrick’s shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re home.”

“I’m so glad you are too.”

~*~

Stevie had checked them into the motel on Thursday evening, so Marcy didn't meet Johnny Rose until she ventured out to get some tea bags from the front desk on Friday morning.

“You must be Mr. Rose,” she said, and she hadn’t needed his nametag emblazoned with ‘Johnny’ to know that this man was David’s father, not given how similar they looked. “I’m Marcy Brewer.”

“Oh, Patrick’s mother!” he said, his voice loud and his smile wide, and then as she watched his face dropped. “Well, David’s been so happy to have Patrick… as a… as a… business partner.”

There was a small part of Marcy, the part that enjoyed teasing people, that wanted to watch Johnny struggle not to betray Patrick’s confidence a little longer. But fortunately, she was a nicer person than that. 

“We know that Patrick and David are a couple — they told us last night.”

“Well, that’s… that’s good. Great!”

“It is good. We’re thrilled to see them so happy together. It’s clear that Patrick’s happier than I’ve seen him in a long time, in spite of his injury.”

“Yes, well, we were very sorry to hear about the car accident. I trust he’s healing up well?” Johnny asked.

“His arm will be in a cast for several weeks and he’s trying to tough out the pain from his broken ribs without taking his pain medication, but all things considered he’s doing okay.” Marcy smiled. “You know, he broke that same arm when he was nine years old, jumping out of a tree.”

Johnny’s eyebrows went up. “My goodness, well. David was a fairly risk-averse child, but I seem to recall Alexis broke her arm around that same age. She was the daredevil of the family when she was small.” There was a lull in the conversation, and Johnny seemed to remember that he was speaking to her as the motel proprietor. “Is there anything you need in your room?”

“Oh yes, that’s why I came in. I was wondering if we could get some more tea bags.”

Snapping his fingers, Johnny walked into a storeroom next to the front desk and emerged after only a few seconds with a handful of them. “Here you go.”

“Thank you.”

“You know,” he said with a conspiratorial wink. “I was skeptical about David and Patrick at first. Trying to juggle a business relationship and a romantic relationship can be tricky. But I don’t know, it seems like they’ve really settled into a groove with each other over all these months.”

Marcy was only just getting used to the idea that her son was gay, and she suddenly found herself feeling jealous that Johnny Rose had known about Patrick and David long enough to have had this evolution of ideas about their relationship.

Johnny’s eyes had strayed over to the computer. “So you’re staying until Sunday?”

“We were going to stay as long as we possibly could to provide Patrick with support, but it occurred to me last night that maybe there’s no need? He has David, who’s taking such good care of him. And if we leave tomorrow, it will give us a day to recover from the long drive before going back to work.”

He nodded. “I wouldn’t have necessarily thought that my son was capable of being a nursemaid to someone.” He laughed uneasily. “Love can certainly bring out the best in a person.” Johnny looked at the computer again. “We have a few vacancies right now, so take your time deciding. If you need to stay until Sunday, that’s fine.”

She thanked him and went back to the room, the bed empty and the sound of the shower signaling where her husband was. She flipped the kettle on, her mind still turning over everything she now knew about her son. She smiled at the casual intimacy of him dozing off on David’s shoulder the night before and the comfort and trust that signaled. At the same time, she was trying not to think too much about the box of condoms in the medicine cabinet. Patrick was an adult and his sex life was none of her business, but he was still her son and she couldn’t help but wonder how learning about his sexual orientation at his age had affected that aspect of his life. She hoped he was happy and fulfilled when it came to sex, but she couldn’t imagine asking him. Of course, maybe if she’d asked him more awkward questions about sex when he was younger, she could have helped him understand himself at a younger age. It was another regret to add to her pile of regrets.

After breakfast at the café, she and Clint walked over to visit the store again. David was near the back wall helping a customer, but when the bell rang he looked up, giving them a quick wave. 

When they’d been in before, Marcy had been focused mainly on the fresh produce displayed in the front of the store and outside, but now she took her time to examine the rows of meticulously labeled bottles and to touch the handmade knitwear, imagining David and Patrick putting this store together item by item. Perhaps giving each other longing looks across the room as they did so. She smiled at that romantic notion.

David escorted the customer to the counter and rang up his purchases, thanking him and telling him to come again as the customer left with another ring of the bell that hung above the door. He looked at them nervously, and Marcy supposed that was understandable: it was the first time he’d been alone in their presence since they learned he was Patrick’s boyfriend. She thought about the other times this week, particularly in the hospital, and how hard it must’ve been for David, trying not to let on how deeply worried he was. How much he cared.

“Do you and Patrick usually work the store together?” she asked, trying to show with a smile that he didn’t need to worry.about where he stood with them.

David nodded. “Most days. We each have a separate day off during the week, and sometimes there are errands to run or vendor pickups to do. But most days we’re both here together.”

Clint put down the wine bottle he was looking at with an amused look. “You must really enjoy each other’s company to spend so much time together,” he said.

Looking like he didn’t know how to take that, David said, “We do.”

“Was Patrick feeling okay this morning?” Marcy asked.

David hesitated, and she wondered with amusement if he thought they wouldn’t assume he’d spent the night at Patrick’s apartment. “He was in pain, but he was up and shuffling his way around the apartment like an old man when I left. I made him promise he would rest today.”

Marcy snorted. “He’s never been one to rest.”

“Yes, _I know_ ,” David said, emphasizing the words with a movement of his entire body. “He’s often up at dawn to hike on his days off like some kind of psychopath.”

“Clint and I should probably stop by and make sure he’s not trying to sneak off for a hike today.”

David gave her a conspiratorial smile. “I wish you would.”

She and Clint bought some candles and two bottles of local wine that they didn’t really need, and then drove over to the apartment. 

Patrick looked better than he had yesterday, moving gingerly but a little more easily around the room as he picked up a plate and mug from the coffee table and carried them to the kitchen after he’d let them in.

“You seem well rested,” Marcy said when he sat back down, kissing his forehead to surreptitiously check his temperature. The cast on his arm suddenly reminded her of little boy Patrick, and the dissonance between the boy he had been and the man he was now brought the sting of tears to her eyes.

“And that’s in spite of spending an hour on the phone with the car insurance agent this morning. But taking a hot shower and sleeping in my own bed last night helped enormously.” 

“You kept your cast from getting wet?” Clint asked. “That’s important.”

“Yeah, I had David to help me in the shower,” Patrick said, and then blushed. “I mean, not…” He stopped and laughed awkwardly. “This is making me feel like a teenager all over again. Actually, more like a teenager than I did when I was a literal teenager.”

Marcy was starting to see what Clint had been talking about — she’d never seen Patrick this flustered talking about Rachel, even the time she caught them fooling around in his bedroom.

“Anyway,” Patrick said, clearing his throat, “I’m already starting to think I might have to go back to work soon or I’ll go stir crazy here.”

She and Clint exchanged a knowing look. “Take a few days off first, bud,” Clint said.

Marcy noticed a framed photo on Patrick’s desk that she hadn’t seen before. Walking over, she picked it up to look at it closely — a picture of Patrick and David with their arms around each other, Christmas decorations behind them. “This is a lovely photo.”

Patrick blushed again, but he smiled. “Alexis took that at the Roses’ Christmas party.”

She set the framed photo back down. “It wasn’t here before.”

“Well, we wanted you to hear it from me that David and I are together, not piece it together from evidence in my apartment. Stevie brought the photos back this morning.” He blushed an even deeper shade of red, but Marcy wasn’t sure why. “Although I guess you pieced it together anyway,” he added.

Marcy looked at her son, really looked at him. Now that he was feeling better, she could tell that he seemed lighter, like a weight that he’d been carrying around for most of his life had been lifted from his shoulders. “David makes you happy,” she said.

Patrick grinned widely, and it was beautiful to see on her son’s face. “Very much.”

“Do you think you’d like to bring him home to visit sometime?” Marcy asked. She looked to Clint, who nodded. 

Her son’s smile widened. “Yeah,” he said, and he almost looked surprised by his own answer. “Yeah, I’d like that. When I’m out of this cast,” he said ruefully, “and when I’ve replaced my car.”

~*~

Once she and Clint were on the road, halfway between Schitt’s Creek and home — after more precious time with her son and David, after a lunch with the entire Rose family that had been fascinating and strange, after Marcy knew she was leaving her son happy and well-cared for — David texted her.

**David:** _I wanted to let you know I’m thinking of throwing Patrick a surprise party for his birthday. I’d love it if you and Mr. Brewer could come back for that._

“Who’s texting you?” Clint asked, sipping from his Tim Horton’s cup.

“David. He wants us to come back and visit for Patrick’s birthday. Says he’s going to throw him a surprise party.”

Clint grinned at her. “Sounds like fun.”

**Marcy:** _How lovely. Yes, we’d love to come._

**David:** _Great. I’ll send you more details closer to the date_  
 _Also, don’t tell Patrick_  
 _Which I’m sure was obvious since I called it a surprise party_  
 _Sorry_

**Marcy:** _No apology needed. Take good care of my boy._

**David:** _Always._

~*~

As he signed his name on the audition form, Patrick said, “I should mention, I’ll be getting this cast off in a couple of weeks.”

“I bet you can’t wait to be rid of it!” Jocelyn said, all of her teeth showing in some kind of dismayed, commiserating grin as she handed him a few pages of script.

“And your broken ribs are all mended, Patrick?” Moira asked.

He twisted at the waist a couple of times to demonstrate that they were. They still ached first thing in the morning, but he’d been given a clean bill of health at his follow-up visit with his doctor (as well as the all-clear for sex, but that wasn’t a piece of information he needed to share with David’s mother and Jocelyn Schitt).

“That’s good, because _Cabaret_ has a lot of dancing!” Jocelyn said.

Patrick narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think Cliff does that much dancing though, does he?” It was why he’d decided that Cliff was a safe role to try for; no one had ever accused Patrick of being a good dancer.

When his turn to audition began, he started to read the scene with one of the women who was auditioning for Sally Bowles, but Moira interrupted them and decided to have Jocelyn read with Patrick. Jocelyn didn’t seem thrilled with the idea, but she went along. Moira Rose was a difficult woman to refuse.

Moira removed her reading glasses. “Okay, the thing you must understand about Cliff, Patrick, is that he has been with many women but he’s _never_ derived true pleasure from it.”

Patrick met her eyes, this strange woman he was starting to think of as almost like family. He suppressed a smirk. “I think I can wrap my head around that,” he deadpanned.

Moira gave him a conspiratorial smile in return. “When you’re ready.”

He looked down at the page and skimmed over the lines before meeting Mrs. Rose’s gaze once more. “I’m ready.”

~*~

“My mom cannot stop talking about your acting chops,” David said over dinner in Patrick’s apartment a few nights later. “It’s annoying.” But the pride shining in his eyes told Patrick that maybe David didn’t find it as annoying as he claimed.

The official _Cabaret_ cast list had been emailed around that afternoon, and seeing his name so near the top was giving Patrick second thoughts. “Okay, and look, I was flattered when your mom said I should be cast as the Emcee. But I’ve been watching youtube clips of Joel Grey and Alan Cumming and I don’t know if I can pull that off. I’m going to make a fool of myself.”

David tilted his head to the side, pondering it. “Except you’re one of those people that once you’ve decided to do something, you work hard until you’re competent at it. Dancing can be like that, maybe.” His eyes strayed down Patrick’s body. “Even if your thighs are like thick tree trunks.”

Narrowing his eyes, Patrick said, “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult.”

David’s eyes twinkled. “Depends on the context. In bed? When I’m between them? Definitely a compliment.”

“Noted,” Patrick said, a zing of energy going down his spine at the way David was looking at him. Maybe David was right — with practice, maybe he could learn to dance well enough not to embarrass himself, at least. He took another bite of his dinner, thinking about it. “Oh, and I have bad news.”

David looked up, worry plain on his face. “What?”

“This is the last of my mom’s casseroles from the freezer,” Patrick said with a smirk.

David stuck out his lower lip. “Do you think she’d ship us some more?”

Patrick laughed out loud at that, and then took a swig of his beer. “For you, she probably would. I’m pretty sure she thinks you can do no wrong.”

“No one has ever thought that about me.”

“My mom does.” He looked down at his plate and back up. “She told me that if she’d realized what my happiness actually looked like, she would have known not to push me to get back together with Rachel.”

“That’s very sweet,” David murmured.

Patrick set his fork down. “Are you staying over tonight?”

“I can if you want me to. I brought my bag,” David said.

“You’ve stayed over every night this week,” Patrick said. He loved it when David stayed over. He always wanted David to stay over.

“Oh. I can go to the motel tonight. I didn’t—”

“David, no. That’s not why I—”

“You don’t really need my help anymore—”

“Move in with me.”

David put his fork down carefully. “What did you say?”

“Move in with me,” Patrick repeated. He hadn’t planned on asking, and if he had planned on asking, it might have been in a more romantic context than while they sat at his little kitchen table and ate leftover turkey tetrazzini. On second thought, maybe this was the perfect time — because Patrick wanted to share the mundane moments like this, all of them, with David.

“You wanted this place just for you. You said.”

“I did. I did say that. And it’s not that I was lying, because I really had convinced myself that I wanted that. But also, I think in the back of my mind, I wanted my parents to know about us before we took the big step of moving in together.” He reached over and took David’s hand. “I love having you here every night. I know the closet situation isn’t ideal and we may need to work out some kind of storage situation for your clothes, but… I just want you here. I want this place to be yours as much as it’s mine.”

“You won’t regret this once your cast comes off and everything’s back to normal?”

“I want _this_ to be what’s normal,” Patrick said. “Dinner and spending the evening together and waking up with you every morning. And if this place is too small, we can start looking for a bigger one—”

David snorted. “I live in a motel room with my sister; I’m no longer used to space.” He looked around. “Although, yes, we may want to look for a bigger place. Eventually.” 

“So is that a yes?” Patrick said, unable to keep the grin off of his face.

“Are you sure?” David pressed his lips together, one of his trying-and-failing-to-suppress-a-smile looks.

“I’m sure.”

“Then… yes.”

Patrick stood up and pulled David to his feet and put his arms around him and hugged him, his lips pressing against David’s skin briefly before he tucked his face into the crook of his neck. The cast on his arm kept him from hugging David as tightly as he wanted to, but David draped his arms over Patrick’s shoulders and hugged him tight enough for the both of them.

When they pulled apart, David’s eyes were damp. “Well, if we’re going to be moving in together, I have a question.”

Patrick raised his eyebrows. “Yes, David?”

David closed an eye in a grimace. “How married are we to these rugs?”


End file.
